Why Don’t More Christians Like FIFTY SHADES OF GREY?
Do you think I’m talking about Fifty Shades of Grey? Actually, I’m referring to The Wolf of Wall Street, which came out on
DVD just last year.
Many prominent Christian critics loved WoWS, as I pointed out earlier. Fifty Shades of Grey,
on the other hand, has been either ignored or condemned. And yet there are some
glaring similarities in how both movies handle sex.
They both employ stylistic techniques that were labeled as hardcore porn just a few decades
ago. These techniques involve the filming of partially and/or fully nude actors
who are engaged in sexual behavior with one another.
Both films dehumanize the actors who star in them. For WoWS, this is especially true for actor
Margot Robbie, as explained by her own testimony. For Fifty
Shades, the objectification of Dakota Johnson took a toll on both of the
main actors, as evidenced by several cast interviews. Consider the following snippet from Glamour:
Or consider this excerpt from Johnson in TIME:
Johnson’s psychological distress is a milder version of the sexual trauma actors experience in the world of porn.
JAMIE: There were times when Dakota was not
wearing much, and I had to do stuff to her that I’d never choose to do to a
woman.
DAKOTA: It’s
stressful enough to be tied to a bed naked in a scene. But then they call cut,
and you’re still tied to the bed, naked. Jamie would be the first one to
throw a blanket over me.
JAMIE: I felt very protective and aware that
it probably wasn’t easy for her to be put in those situations, and exposed. . .
.
DAKOTA: Sometimes
I
did walk off the set feeling a bit shell-shocked. The drive home from work
always helped me snap out of it. And a big glass of wine.
Or consider this excerpt from Johnson in TIME:
It was
emotionally taxing. At first I was like, “Oh my God, this is the worst thing
ever,” and then I was like, “All right, let’s get on with it.”
Johnson’s psychological distress is a milder version of the sexual trauma actors experience in the world of porn.
Am I going out on a limb by comparing these films to
pornography? Well, reviewers of The
Wolf of Wall Street—including those who loved the film—refer to it as being
sexually explicit in the extreme (something we’ve examined in detail before). When a movie is “replete with…acts of sexual depravity” and “borderline NC-17,”
how can its pornographic overtones be denied?
Similarly, audiences and critics alike have associated Fifty Shades with porn. Mike McGranaghan writes, “At its core, this
is a rape fantasy. . . . If you think rape is a turn-on, this is the film for
you.” Movie reviewer Gary Wolcott
says, “Fifty
Shades of Grey is basically a beautifully filmed, expensive piece of soft
core pornography. It gives you the most explicit sex, bondage and spanking
you’ll see this side of an Internet porn site.”
But that’s not all. There are ways in which The Wolf of Wall Street is actually more problematic than Fifty
Shades. For example, the former has more sexually explicit content
than the latter. WoWS has somewhere
close to 22 sex scenes, whereas Fifty Shades
involves the main characters having sex less than ten times.
And what about the use of the male gaze (which influences
most mainstream sex scenes)? If anything, Fifty Shades fairs better in this regard. While
still succumbing to the male gaze in many respects,
it also reveals several
aesthetic choices that speak more to a female audience.
With these considerations, how can Christians call WoWS a “great and possibly terrific movie” while rejecting Fifty Shades out of hand because “frankly, life is too short”?
There are several answers to this question, I’m sure, but
the one I’ve heard most often goes something like this: the message of Fifty Shades is bad, but the message of WoWS is good. WoWS shows how carnal and corrupt the main character really is,
while Fifty Shades puts a positive
spin on sexual abuse and manipulation.
In response, it could be argued that the overall trajectory
of the Fifty Shades trilogy is
actually a story about true love. After all, the narrative acknowledges the detrimental
nature of Christian Grey’s sexual excursions. His abusive ways are rooted in
the abuse he himself received. His character arc involves going from a hardened
cynic into a true romantic—all because of the transforming power of love.
Even if you think that explanation is hogwash, there is an even deeper problem with the Christian’s argument
that WoWS is commendable and Fifty Shades is condemnable. It’s found,
among other places, in a Christianity Today article on Fifty Shades.
The film, it says, “has no real cogent moral or cultural point buried within.” The implicit idea here is that if we could
discern a moral point, the story—including all of its pornographic material—would become worthy of our patronage.
That line of reasoning, however, is faulty.
Since when does a code of Christian sexual ethics submit to the principle that
the ends justify the means? We would never blatantly say all storytelling
methods are fair game so long as the message of a story is a moral one.
And yet it seems as if we’re trying to smuggle
a deadly principle into our Christianity—the idea that the right thing pursued
through the wrong means actually isn’t that bad after all. In effect, we are
saying that a filmmaker can borrow techniques from the world of porn and somehow not subvert a film’s moral message. We’d
be shocked and ashamed to see religious retail stores market “Christian porn,”
but we’re quick to patronize pornographic content—so long as it is labeled as
mainstream and comes with a worthwhile moral/cultural point.
So, I’ll end this piece right back where it began: Why
don’t more Christians like Fifty Shades
of Grey?
photo credit: Mike Mozart via flickr, CC
photo credit: Mike Mozart via flickr, CC